Barack Obama Use Ethos In The Commencement Address At Morehouse College

In the Commencement Address at Morehouse college in 2013 given by President Barack Obama, he was able to connect with his audience by using Rhetorical appeals. The three strategies Obama focused on was pathos, ethos and logos, by using those he was also able to reach and persuade his audience to follow his advice and guidance. Each strategy that President Obama used had a different meaning. He would use pathos to make them feel certain emotions, logos to persuade the audience by the use of arguments that they will perceive as logical and ethos that would be perceived as credible (or not).

The most effective rhetorical appeal that was used in the speech was pathos. President Obama used pathos the most in his speech because connecting the audience emotions into the speech would typically catch their attention due to the fact that it is something they can connect their feelings with. The way obama persuaded with this rhetorical appeal was by quoting Benjamin Mays who served as president of Morehouse college for over 30 years which is something Morehouse students can connect with. “It will not be sufficient for Morehouse College, for any college, for that matter, to produce clever graduates — but rather honest men, men who can be

In the speech Obama uses ethos to have credibility in his speech. During the speech he talked about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who is also a Morehouse graduate, so that the audience could connect with the speech. “Dr. King was just 15 years old when he enrolled here at Morehouse. He was an unknown, undersized, unassuming young freshman who lived at home with his parents...But his education at Morehouse helped to forge the intellect, the discipline, the compassion, the soul force that would transform America.” Due to the fact king was a Morehouse graduate, the audience was able to follow Obama’s speech because many African-American men look up to king and follow his